Elkins Sweeney Todd

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            Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a musical that I can only describe as a “bloody delight.” It’s songs are filled with gruesome content and are largely revenge-driven. It is about an outsider (Burton’s favorite thing) who, in a quest for revenge, turns into a monster that kills people in a barber shop left and right.

            With that being said, the cannibalism in the movie is really quite revolting and elicits a response akin to “gross” from me. Cannibalism is a metaphor for the city of London, where one essentially just becomes a piece of meat and loses all individuality to those that give them work. It is a very “man-eat-man” kind of world, and the use of cannibalism makes that phrase quite literal. Sweeney Todd, in a way, turns this notion of “the commoner working for the aristocrat” on its head by literally serving the aristocrats to the commoner. One might argue that this is all Mrs. Lovett’s fault (and one could argue that she’s just trying to survive in a world that does not like her awful meatpies), but, at the end of the day, it is hard not to see Todd as a monster. I do not even think it elicits a “the aristocrats got what they deserved” response; the audience is just horrified at what Todd has become.

I think Burton overcomes moral revulsion, murder, and cannibalism by using the character Toby. After losing the con-artist Pirelli, the audience feels a twinge of sympathy for him, as he has nowhere else to go. Todd and Mrs, Lovett take him in (which is nice of them) and he grows close to Mrs. Lovett, but incredibly suspicious of Todd (as he should). Toby is the only one in the “family” that has a notion of morality, and this becomes really important once he finds out what going into the meatpies. After Todd murders Mrs. Lovett, Toby delivers the justice that has been a long time coming by slitting Todd’s throat with a razor (which is ironic because that is the same way in which Todd killed all of his victims).

            With Sweeney Todd, Burton delivers a musical rife with violence and cannibalistic metaphors.